MAJ Eric Magnell served as trial counsel for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (BCT) of the 1st Infantry Division (ID) at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Dagger during 2004 and 2005 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). In this February 2010 interview, MAJ Magnell discusses his transition from a combat engineer to the Judge Advocate General (JAG) corps, the challenges of managing detainees while complying with evidence packet requirements, and his role in the Iraqi elections of 2004. Regarding the tone of the fight at this time, MAJ Magnell observes: "We were implementing the effects-based operations and trying to look at the different lines of operation. We were looking at governance and rule of law and those things; something that was very alien to a lot of [officers] and was certainly not what we thought we'd be doing as Army officers. I could see a palpable relief when there was a raid to do or a mission. It was like, "Okay. This is something we know how to do. Let's go do it!" It wasn't for lack of trying and there were a lot of really good things going on, but it seemed to be that at that point we were just much more capable at the kinetic operations and much quicker to go to that because it was what we knew. It's a really stressful environment and when you're stressed and trying to figure out what to do, you fall back on what you know. It was good to see what came out with the COIN doctrine because then there was a high level emphasis and focus on using restraint and not going immediately to kinetic or lethal operations. "Let's see how we can do this a different way." I thought that's the kind of emphasis it needed. Once it started coming top, down it gave support to the folks at the lower level who realized we needed to do something different."

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